


Next Time, Baby, I'll Be Bulletproof

by unrestrainedpassion



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Cliche, Fluff, Guns, Love, M/M, Repressed Emotion, Season 2 spoilers, boys that can't just talk about it, etc - Freeform, minor injury, sort of, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3774934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrestrainedpassion/pseuds/unrestrainedpassion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts out with a gunshot, leads to an argument, and ends with some realizations. </p><p>Unbetaed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next Time, Baby, I'll Be Bulletproof

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “Stop talking about love for a minute and help me with this bullet wound!"
> 
> from putthepromptsonpaper on tumblr.

Danny feels like his life is a series of “Christ, _again_?”s since meeting McGarrett. An average day at the office has become pathetically predictable: Either Steve or Danny wakes the other at an inappropriately early time; Chin or Kono gives them the run down of their next case; Danny gets coffee; Steve makes a Face, and then eventually some combination of the HPD and Five-0 bust into yet another abandoned warehouse, demolition site, or what-have-you. Why the governor hasn’t outlawed creepy places entirely escapes Danny.

This particular day, they’re in the middle of a shootout. Any good cop’ll tell you shootouts with perps are chaotic, dangerous, and completely unpredictable.

Not for Danny.

It always ends with some stupidly brave--or bravely stupid--manoeuvre on Steve’s part and a very thoroughly used bulletproof vest. Steve argues that it’s perfectly alright to use an object for its purpose--“It’s like leaving your Camaro in the garage every day when it’s so perfect for car chases, Danno,”--but later, Danny can’t miss the manful wincing every time Steve so much as breathes.

But this time it’s different. Granted, there are crates, and it’s a warehouse, and oh, look, they’re low on ammo with zero promise of backup unless Kono can read minds (who is he kidding, really, she might be able to) but Steve took six rounds to the chest and he’s looking a little too stunned to pull a stupid stunt this time, so it looks like Danny’s gotta pick up the check.

 _What a surprise_ , he thinks.

“Danny,” Steve pants, eyes unfocused but bright. “Danny, give me a second.”

“Yeah, babe, I’ll give you more than that,” he mutters back, clapping Steve’s shoulder for a second. “Danno’s gonna take out the bad guys just for you.”

The Look on Steve’s face is so worth what he’s about to do; he thinks he’ll call this one _I Am Not A Princess, Danno, I Am A Machine of Fire And--Ouch, That Hurts_.

Danny leans out, fires a few rounds in the general direction of the three perps, and bolts from his cover into the open. The criminals, shocked by his bold move, hold off retaliation long enough for Danny to drop two of them--one in the shoulder, the other one neatly through the forehead. The last one blanches, reloads his gun, and takes aim, firing as he backs up behind the next stack of crates less than twelve feet away. Miraculously, not a single shot makes contact, and Danny puts the last guy down, two shots center mass; there’s no way he’s getting back up. Pleased with himself, Danny holsters his gun and saunters back to the first two perps and Steve.

A flash of movement in the corner of his eye has him scrambling back, reaching for his gun, but it’s too late: the perp he got in the shoulder fires two shots at him. Blood sprays from his thigh and he slumps with a gasp onto the floor. That’s it, he’s dead, what’s wrong with him, he’s gotten so careless--

Steve bursts from his crates and shoots the perp three times in quick succession.

 _Now_ they’re finished.

“Danny!” Steve rushes to him, pulling his hands away from his wound. “Ah, jeez, Danno, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--”

“Steve--”

“I don’t think it’s hit your femoral artery--”

“Steve--!”

“Oh, god, and you have Grace this weekend, you’re gonna be on crutches--”

“ _Steve_!”

“What!?”

“It’s just a _graze_ , Steven, I’m fine.” It’s true; a three inch gouge of flesh on the outside of his thigh is painful, sure, but it hardly constitutes panic or, god forbid, _crutches_.

Steve blinks, looking so lost and clueless it’s almost-- _almost_ , he swears--cute. He looks down at his hands where they’re applying pressure and swallows. “Oh, right.”

“Barely even felt it,” lies Danny.

“Sure.” Steve narrows his eyes. “What the hell was that?”

“What the hell was that? _That_ , my friend, was me taking a leaf outta your book. You know, the one titled _The Brave, The Dumb, and The Manly?_ ”

“No, that was you leaving your cover without a partner to protect your ass--”

“It was me protecting my partner who’d nearly just got _shot_ in the ass--”

“Taking bullets for you!”

“Yeah, and how is that not dumb and brash?”

“It’s okay when it’s me, Daniel!”

Danny grits his teeth. He’s still slumped against the crates, Steve kneeling over him like a mother hen. Admittedly a mother hen with an eight-inch knife concealed in each boot, but still.

“And why is that, Steven?”

He looks down, jaw working like it’s trying to keep words in. “Because,” he grunts.

Maybe it’s the hot sun beating down on them like a slave-driver; maybe it’s the rather anticlimactic end to a week-long drugs smuggling case; maybe it’s the stupidly brave, loyal-to-a-fault man kneeling over Danny like Danny usually finds himself leaning over him; whatever it is, it’s broken a dam in Danny, one holding back three months’ frustration and anguish.

“You worry _me_ more than I ever worry you, McGarrett! Why is it when I do my _goddamn job_ you’re all over me, but when you disappear to God-knows-where for two fucking weeks I have to sit down and shut up?”

Steve jerks his head back like Danny punched him, and _wow_ , Danny might, because his partner has the nerve to look _offended_ \--

“That was different, and you know it.”

“You’re right! Who am I kidding? I can’t prevent Lieutenant Commander Assnugget from doing what he does best! He has friends to ignore, emotions to repress! It's a matter of national security!” Now he’s getting into this, this wonderfully cathartic argument, and he’s saying all the things he’s wanted to say for so long; the pain in his leg fades to an itch.

“ _Assnugget_?!”

“You know what I mean!”

“I did not _ignore_ you, Danny, Christ! I thought about you every day!”

“Then what, Steve, prevented you from calling me and letting me know you were alive?”

There it is, the jaw-clenching, like Steve’s holding something back.

Danny moves in for the kill. “I cannot work with you, babe, if you do not _let me in._ ”

It’s terrifying, the way Steve’s stoic expression shatters immediately. “That isn’t--” his voice breaks. “You can’t threaten to leave me after you get shot--”

“It’s just a scrape--”

“It’s a low blow, is what it is; it’s not--”

“Steve, you have to let me in--”

“I can’t--”

“Then _I_ can’t--”

“But you _have_ to,” Steve pleads, and Danny can just feel the moment he realizes that no, Steve’s right: He can’t leave, he won’t, and he’s so stupid in love with this man, how had he not realized?

Steve is still applying pressure to his wound, his hands steady and stained bright red with blood.

“We should call for backup.”

“I did.”

Danny eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Voluntarily?”

“Right after you broke cover, like a complete idiot.”

“Do not start this again, Steve--”

“I can’t lose you, Danno.”

Steve’s eyes are so big and blue, filled with apologies and regrets and relief and--dare Danny think it--maybe even love.

Danny sighs. “I’m afraid you might be stuck with me for a while yet, Assnugget.”

Steve’s smile is brighter than the Hawaiian sun off the ocean and a thousand times warmer, too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just some quick practice because these boys are idiots.
> 
> And, uh, yes--the title is taken from LaRoux's "Bulletproof". 
> 
> What? It's a classic.


End file.
